With as much time as i dedicate to alternative media i find it a bit surprising that i hadn’t realized how incredibly popular National Public Radio (NPR) is. A number of friends who listen regularly often rave about how fairly and accurately NPR and its affiliates portray both sides of the issue at hand. They seem to place what i would consider to be an unusual amount of trust in NPR, its journalistic ethics and unbiased reporting of the news. A 2005 Harris poll affirms a general public trust in NPR, who was voted the most trusted news source in the U.S..

NPR’s flagships are two drive time news broadcasts, Morning Edition and the afternoon All Things Considered; both are carried by most NPR member stations, and are two of the most popular radio programs in the country.

My friends insisted that i listen to NPR and so i gave it a whirl. It wasn’t long before i concluded that National Public Radio is little different from any other government or corporate owned mainstream news company. Here’s why:

Red Flags

The simple fact that NPR broadcasts on the FM band raises the first red flag of many to follow. Because of my earlier extensive research regarding mainstream media, i know full well that unbiased, relevant topics of the day are not going to be dealt with in any objective and granular manner on FM radio anymore than they would be on mainstream television. To understand why this is, one must understand who owns mainstream media , who sits on their boards of directors, and the relationships those board members have with other corporations.

On October 26, 2002, over 100,000 people came to the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. to protest U.S. foreign policy, mainly the coming attack on Iraq. Organizers and those on the ground said there were over 200,000 people. UPI, Washington Post, and L.A. Times all estimated that over 100,000 rallied. Meanwhile, on National Public Radio, Nancy Marshall was on the scene, and reported, “I’d say there were fewer than ten thousand.”

She also reported that protesters agreed with Bush that “we need to do something in Iraq.” Thousands of protest signs (see below) with slogans along the lines of “Regime Change in U.S.” and “Stop U.S. terror,” clearly showed that the majority of protesters think “we need to do something” in the United States, not Iraq. Its also hard to imagine that she actually found a protester who said they would support U.S. to “ratchet up sanctions.”

This is NPR, National Public Radio. Support for WAMU is provided by Lockheed Martin. Bringing criminals to justice is more important than ever. Advanced systems developed by Lockheed Martin help Federal agents get the job done faster. Lockheed Martin: we never forget who we’re working for.

This made me wonder about the kind of reporting NPR has done on Lockheed Martin in the past, so i headed back to their website. As you can see for yourself, NPR appears to have almost nothing negative to say about one of the largest defense contractors on the planet which, considering Lockheed helps fund NPR and/or its affiliates, is not at all surprising.

- Wal-Mart

Neither Wal-Mart nor NPR would reveal what it pays as an NPR sponsor. The contract began Feb. 16 and extends until January. Total corporate financing is expected to reach $30 million this year, Ms. Lawhorn said. As part of its NPR arrangement, Wal-Mart is described several ways when it is mentioned as an underwriter on the air. The descriptions include the following: “Wal-Mart. Providing jobs and opportunities for millions of Americans of all ages and all walks of life.” Another says the company is “bringing communities job opportunities, goods and services and support for neighborhood programs.”

NPR has received letters and e-mail messages from listeners since the Wal-Mart underwriting information began to be broadcast. One listener wrote: “What a disappointment! Maybe next it will be Halliburton .” […]

Wal-Mart is one of the reasons why so many have lost their jobs! Ever find anything in Wal-Mart that is made in the U.S.? It takes only one person to buy a product, but often hundreds to make it and those jobs are in China.

- McDonald’s

The situation is no better at National Public Radio (NPR) that long ago abandoned the public trust it was sworn to uphold when it was founded in 1970 as in independent, private, non-profit member organization of public radio stations in the country. It’s as tainted and corrupted as its television counterpart and now also gets a substantial proportion of its funding from corporate donors demanding influence, like the kind a $225 million behest can buy. That’s the amount gotten from the estate of the late Joan Kroc, widow of Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s Corporation that never needs to worry about an unfriendly report on NPR’s airwaves no matter how egregious its behavior, and there’s plenty of it to reveal that stays suppressed in all the major media including on NPR, the “peoples’ radio.”

Despite its mandate to be unbiased and serve the public interest, NPR steers clear of that in its one-sided kind of “journalism.” It’s careful to shy away from all controversial topics that may be sensitive to corporate interests that include those providing it funding support or might wish to like Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto and Walmart that already do. It’s also “respectful” of whichever party is in power with Republican administrations getting special deference as they were from 1994 until the Democrats took control of the Congress in the November, 2006 mid-term elections. Even George Bush’s most extreme transgressions can’t get NPR’s ire up enough to report accurately on them.

That’s made even clearer when it’s known what kind of man it has in charge – current president and CEO Kevin Klose. Like the CPB during the Tomlinson tenure, so too is NPR run by a man who used to be the director of all major worldwide US government propaganda dissemination broadcast media including VOA, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti. And like Tomlinson, it made him an ideal choice for a comparable job at NPR, the “peoples’ radio,” that like the “peoples’ television” and its flagship Lehrer News Hour, never met a US-instigated war it didn’t love, support and report endless supportive propaganda about while suppressing all news unfriendly to the US empire and its business interests.

So far as its known, however, Mr. Klose hasn’t been accused of the kinds of activities attributed to his former CPB counterpart, staying free from the taint that forced Mr. Tomlinson to resign. That aside, it’s had no positive impact on NPR’s programming that’s just as committed as PBS to serving the interests of wealth and power feeding it while ignoring the public trust despite the considerable funding it gets from that source from frequent on-air fund-raising efforts it has no right or justification asking for.

- The list goes on

The sponsor lists, as provided by NPR, are full of high-profile, multi-national corporations and other powerful and influential entities. Following is a small sample from their 2008 Annual Reports and Donor Lists (edited list, does not include all sponsors):

$1 million+

General Motors Corporation

Northwestern Mutual Foundation

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company

Prudential Financial

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

$500,000 – $999,999

Citibank

Constellation Energy Group

LendingTree

Lionsgate Entertainment Corporation

Vanguard Group

$250,000 – $499,999

Alliance for Climate Protection

CITGO Petroleum Corporation

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Overture Films

PBS

Universal Pictures

Warner Home Video

100,000 – $249,999

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

ABC

Caterpillar

FX Networks

HBO

HoMedics

Hyatt Corporation

Intel Corporation

Johnson Controls

Lindamood-Bell Learning Systems

MGM

Paramount Home Entertainment

Paramount Pictures

Philips Healthcare

U.S. Bank

In the same document in the FY08 INSTITUTIONAL & CORPORATE FOUNDATIONS & PUBLIC SECTOR GRANTS section, we find (edited list, does not include all sponsors):

$500,000 – $1 million

American Jewish World Service

The Annenberg Foundation

Corporation for Public Broadcasting*

$250,000 – $499,999

Carnegie Corporation of New York*

Department of Education

Skoll Foundation

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation*

$100,000 – $249,000

Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

The Ford Foundation

NASDAQ Educational Foundation

Public Telecommunications

Facilities Program – U.S. Department of Commerce

The (*) indicates a multi-year grant.

The CPB: Corporation for Public Government Broadcasting

Created and funded by congress, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) formed National Public Radio in 1970. According to Wikipedia:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is a private non-profit corporation created by an act of the United States Congress and largely funded by the United States Federal Government to promote public broadcasting. Historically, 15% to 20% of the aggregate revenues of all public broadcasting stations have been funded from federal sources, principally through CPB.[1]

CPB was created on November 7, 1967 when U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. The new organization initially collaborated with the pre-existing National Educational Television network. In 1969 CPB started its own network, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).[2] PBS became independent several years later.[citation needed] In 1970, CPB formed National Public Radio (NPR), a network of public radio stations.[2]

CPB provides some funding for PBS and NPR, but much more of its funding goes to public television and radio stations that are members of PBS or NPR, as well as to other broadcasters that are independent of those organizations. In more recent years, CPB has started funding some Internet-based projects.

A very small percentage — between one percent to two percent of NPR’s annual budget — comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Technically that may be true, but i think it could be considered misleading; although NPR corporate may only receive 1-2% funding from CPB, its affiliates appear to receive a substantial amount. I wonder how much latitude NPR or its affiliates have to be critical of the U.S. government who, ultimately, funds both?

A bit later from the same page:

On average, public radio stations (including NPR Member stations) receive the largest percentage of their annual operating revenue (31%) from listener support. For FY07, the most recent data available, the average station’s revenues came from the following sources:

31% from listeners in the form of pledges, memberships, and other donations

20% from businesses via corporate underwriting

11% from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is federally funded*

10% from licensee support

9% from foundations and major gifts

5% from local and state governments, and

14% from all other sources.

*A note on CPB funding: There are 434 stations in 47 states and territories (including Guam and Puerto Rico) that specifically serve rural and minority communities; the latter includes numerous African-American, Native American, Latino, and multicultural licensees. In many cases, they are the sole local broadcasting service available. These stations receive significantly higher funding from CPB – in some cases, as much as two-thirds of their budgets – since many of their listeners simply don’t have the financial resources to provide support.

NPR says, “On average, public radio stations (including NPR Member stations) receive the largest percentage of their annual operating revenue (31%) from listener support.”. If you look at that statement another way, it says that the largest (69%) of their funding does not come from listener support, 36% of which is from business and government, outweighing the 31% from listeners.

Approximately half of NPR’s annual operating revenue is contributed from the private sector, primarily from corporations and foundations. NPR receives no direct support from the federal government […]

The last sentence may be technically correct, but why does NPR make this statement at all? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to interpret this as NPR making an effort to deceive listeners about the government funding it receives indirectly. Whether the money passes through another party – the CPB in this instance – is irrelevant.

- Board of Directors

The board of directors for the CPB are appointed by the president and, as of 2009, include the following people:

Ernest J. Wilson III (chair), Democrat, nominated to first term by President Clinton in 2000. Renominated to second term November 2004 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate November 2004. Term expires 2010.

Beth Courtney (vice chair), independent, nominated April 2003 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate December 2003. Term expires 2010.

Chris Boskin, Republican, nominated June 2006 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate September 2006. Term expires 2012.

Patricia Cahill, Democrat, nominated July 2009 by President Obama , confirmed by U.S. Senate August 2009. Term expires 2014.

Gay Hart Gaines, Republican, nominated December 2003 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate November 2004. Term expires 2010.

Lori Gilbert, Democrat, nominated May 2008 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate October 2008. term expires 2012.

Former Senator David H. Pryor, Democrat, nominated to first term by President George W. Bush in 2006. Renominated to second term May 2008 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate October 2008. Term expires 2014.

Bruce Ramer, Republican, nominated May 2008 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate October 2008. Terms expires 2012.

Elizabeth Sembler, Republican, nominated May 2008 by President George W. Bush , confirmed by U.S. Senate October 2008. Term expires 2014.

- Interlocks

People holding positions with NPR also hold positions in the the following organizations:

America Abroad Media

American Action Network

Aspen Institute

Brookings Institution

Clark & Weinstock

Council on Foreign Relations

Emerging Markets Management, LLC

FirstEnergy Corp.

Harvard Business School

ITT Educational Services

KeyCorp

Lenox Corporation

National Endowment for Democracy

PolyOne

Republican Party

SEED Foundation

US House of Representatives

Washington National Opera

- What comes around goes around

People affiliated with NPR have made substantial contributions to a number of political parties and organizations including the Brookings Institution, a major Washington think-tank financed in part by the Department of Defense, Pfizer, Microsoft, the Ford foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Nathaniel Rothschild, a laundry list of insurance companies, the governments of Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, Qatar and other nations, GE, Exxon Mobile, Chevron, Citibank, Bank of America and other banks, the US Agency for International Development, Walmart and ALCOA just to name a few (there are apparently at least 156 donors in all). Members of the Brookings Institution have donated to political parties including George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, John Kerry, John McCain, the Democratic National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Criticism

In 1983 NPR had some trouble which led to a Congressional investigation (i haven’t investigated what the hub-bub was all about). Wikipedia tells us the following:

NPR suffered an almost fatal setback in 1983 when efforts to expand services created a deficit of nearly US$7 million. After a Congressional investigation and the resignation of NPR’s president, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed to lend the network money to stave off bankruptcy.

At this point i think it is abundantly clear that the U.S. government is in a very advantageous position to influence NPR. However, lets continue.

In a December 2005 column run by NPR ombudsman and former Vice President Jeffrey Dvorkin, allegations that NPR relies heavily on conservative think-tanks[21] were denied. In his column, Dvorkin listed the number of times NPR had cited experts from conservative and liberal think tanks in the previous year as evidence. However, according to MediaMatters, a progressive media group, the numbers he reported indicate an overwhelmingly conservative bias. His own tally showed that 63% of NPR experts from think tanks came from right-leaning organizations while only 37% came from left-leaning organizations.[22]

In 2003, some critics accused NPR of being supportive of the invasion of Iraq.[23][24]

Allegations of liberal bias

A study conducted by researchers at UCLA and the University of Missouri found that while NPR is “often cited by conservatives as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet”, “[b]y our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet. Its score is approximately equal to those of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and its score is slightly more conservative than The Washington Post’s.”[25] It did find NPR to be more liberal than the average U.S. voter of the time of the study and more conservative than the average U.S. Democrat of the time. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a progressive media watchdog group,[26] also disputes the claim of a liberal bias.[27]

Allegations of bias against Israel

NPR has been criticized for perceived bias in its coverage of Israel.[28][29][30][31]

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a pro-Israel American media monitoring organization based in Boston, has been particularly critical of NPR. CAMERA director Andrea Levin has stated, “We consider NPR to be the most seriously biased mainstream media outlet,” a statement that The Boston Globe describes as having “clearly gotten under her target’s skin.”[31] NPR’s then-Ombudsman, Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, said in a 2002 interview that CAMERA used selective citations and subjective definitions of what it considers pro-Palestinian bias in formulating its findings, and that he felt CAMERA’s campaign was “a kind of McCarthyism, frankly, that bashes us and causes people to question our commitment to doing this story fairly. And it exacerbates the legitimate anxieties of many in the Jewish community about the survival of Israel.”[32]

Other criticisms

A 2004 FAIR study concluded that “NPR’s guestlist shows the radio service relies on the same elite and influential sources that dominate mainstream commercial news, and falls short of reflecting the diversity of the American public.”[33]

Noam Chomsky has criticized NPR as being biased toward ideological power and the status quo. He alleges that the parameters of debate on a given topic are very consciously curtailed. He says that since the network maintains studios in ideological centers of opinion such as Washington, the network feels the necessity to carefully consider what kinds of dissenting opinion are acceptable. Thus, political pragmatism, perhaps induced by fear of offending public officials who control some of the NPR’s funding (via CPB), often determines what views are suitable for broadcast, meaning that opinions critical of the structures of national-interest-based foreign policy, capitalism, and government bureaucracies (entailed by so-called “radical” or “activist” politics) usually do not make it to air.[34]

In 2009 NPR edited Nathan Lee’s review of Outrage, a documentary on closeted gay politicians who actively work against lesbian, gay, transgender and queer rights[35]. NPR removed the names of the politicians from the review, claiming that it needed to protect the privacy of public figures.[36][37] “NPR has a long-held policy of trying to respect the privacy of public figures and of not airing or publishing rumors, allegations and reports about their private lives unless there is a compelling reason to do so,” said Dick Meyer, NPR’s executive director of Digital.[38] However, NPR did not perform such alteration in an editorial by Linda Holmes criticizing media outlets for not acknowledging the sexuality of American Idol frontrunner Adam Lambert, whom she believed to be homosexual. NPR also did not perform such alteration in November 2008, and after the coming out of comedian Wanda Sykes, NPR speculated on-air whether Queen Latifah would also, even though the celebrity has issued no public statements about her sexuality.[37]

As far as criticism from the pro-Israeli organization CAMERA, i give no credence to that allegation whatsoever and find the opposite to be true, as i will demonstrate in the next section.

- Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Morning Edition anchor Bob Edwards on January 3 stated that U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni was coming to the region during “a time of comparative quiet.” In another report the same day, correspondent Linda Gradstein referred to “the relative calm of the past few weeks.” Other NPR reports have mentioned the “recent calm” (1/5/02) or the “fragile period of quiet” (1/7/02).

What NPR means by this was spelled out most explicitly by Linda Gradstein in a January 4 report on the envoy’s mission. “You know, there’s been actually three weeks of relative quiet,” she said. “Only one Israeli has been killed in those three weeks, as opposed to 44 Israelis who were killed when Zinni was here last time in November and early December.”

What Gradstein didn’t mention– and what someone who relied on NPR for their Middle Eastern news would have little idea of — was that this has been in no way a period of calm for Palestinians. In fact, in the three-week period that Gradstein referred to, at least 26 Palestinians were killed by occupation forces– more than one a day.

Media critic Ali Abunimah documented the killings in a letter of protest to NPR (1/8/02), starting with 13-year-old Rami Khamis Al-Zorob, shot in the head on December 13 while playing near his home in Rafah, Gaza. Most of the deaths cited by Abunimah were of unarmed civilians; six were minors, ranging in age from 12 to 17.

But none of these deaths received much attention from NPR, leaving the impression that calm for Israelis was calm for Palestinians as well. One of the few times that the Palestinian toll was even vaguely referred to was in this December 24 exchange between All Things Considered anchor Robert Siegel and correspondent Peter Kenyon:

SIEGEL: “There was a resumption of violence today, I gather, a shooting of a Jewish settler.”

This kind of biased non-journalism is typical throughout mainstream media and what i have come to expect from outlets such as Fox, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc.. For 60+ years Zionists have been slaughtering Arabs and stealing their land while U.S. taxpayers help fund the genocide. Now they have the U.S. doing it for them.

During the six-month period studied, NPR reported the deaths of 62 Israelis and 51 Palestinians. While on the surface that may not appear to be hugely lopsided, during the same time period 77 Israelis and 148 Palestinians were killed in the conflict. That means there was an 81 percent likelihood that an Israeli death would be reported on NPR, but only a 34 percent likelihood that a Palestinian death would be.

Of the 30 Palestinian civilians under the age of 18 that were killed, six were reported on NPR–only 20 percent. By contrast, the network reported on 17 of the 19 Israeli minors who were killed, or 89 percent. While 61 percent of the young people killed in the region during the period studied were Palestinian, only 26 percent of those reported by NPR were. Apparently being a minor makes your death more newsworthy to NPR if you are Israeli, but less newsworthy if you are Palestinian.

If these statistics are accurate they are pretty telling and aligned with what the rest of mainstream media reports regarding the genocide taking place.

NPR, which now reaches 22 million listeners weekly on 750 affiliated stations, does frequently provide more than the nine-second-soundbite culture of mainstream news broadcasts. But is the public really heard on public radio? And is NPR truly an alternative to its commercial competition? A new FAIR study of NPR ‘s guestlist shows the radio service relies on the same elite and influential sources that dominate mainstream commercial news, and falls short of reflecting the diversity of the American public.

Elite sources dominated NPR ‘s guest-list. These sources – including government officials, professional experts and corporate representatives – accounted for 64 percent of all sources.

Current and former government officials constituted the largest group of elite voices, accounting for 28 percent of overall sources, an increase of 2 percentage points over 1993. Current and former military sources (a subset of governmental sources) were 3 percent of total sources.

Professional experts – including those from academia, journalism, think tanks, legal, medical and other professions – were the second largest elite group, accounting for 26 percent of all sources. Corporate representatives accounted for 6 percent of total sources.

Journalists by themselves accounted for 7 percent of all NPR sources. For a public radio service intended to provide an independent alternative to corporate-owned and commercially driven mainstream media, NPR is surprisingly reliant on mainstream journalists. At least 83 percent of journalists appearing on NPR in June 2003 were employed by commercial U.S. media outlets, many at outlets famous for influencing news- room agendas throughout the country (16 from the New York Times alone, and another seven from the Washington Post ). Only five sources came from independent news outlets like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the National Catholic Reporter .

The remainder of elite sources was distributed among religious leaders (2 percent) and political professionals, including campaign staff and consultants (1 percent).

In early September, the Salt Lake City affiliate of NPR had done an interview with Steven Jones, which was designed to make him look anti-Semitic. Although he said nothing that could be construed in any way to be anti-Semitic, the people who followed Jones in the show accused him of using “code language,” which they said clearly showed that he was an anti-Semite.

Within a day or two, Jones was suspended from his teaching duties at BYU and put on suspension pending a peer review of his thesis. The peer review never happened. Jones was given terms of resignation and took them. The much awaited examination of his thesis never occurred.

Mormon friends of mine told me that President Bush had visited the elders of the church shortly before Jones was framed by the NPR affiliate at the University of Utah. One of the subjects of the meeting, I was told, was how to silence Professor Jones.

Today, on the passing of the head of the Mormon church, a photo of the meeting between President Bush and the church elders is on-line.

Three weeks later, Professor Jones was the victim of a trap set for him on the NPR radio affiliate at the University of Utah:

On September 5, Doug Fabrizio, executive producer of RadioWest on the University of Utah’s public radio station invited Jones to come on his one-hour program to discuss his 9/11 research.

After interviewing Jones for a brief 20 minutes, Fabrizio said goodbye to Jones and turned the remainder of the hour over to a discussion of conspiracy theories with two Jewish professors, a Robert Goldberg from the University of Utah and Gary Fine from Northwestern.

This is the first article involving the cover-up of the 9-11 commission or any story involving suspicions around the “official” story of 9-11 that I remember seeing on the internet site “commondreams.org”!

They also interviewed Professor Steven Jones on our local NPR station here by the most professional local interviewer around.

Could this be what we’ve been waiting for?

The shocking scientific discoveries and peer-reviewed papers by Dr. Steven E. Jones regarding the 11, Sep., 2001 attacks in New York (i don’t recall if he studied the Pentagon attack) should be headline news across the U.S., even today and, in fact, several mainstream outlets did interview Dr. Jones. However if you search the NPR website for the phrase “steven jones” or “steven e jones”, no results are returned for the Steven Jones referenced here which i find very odd indeed. This is interesting because a friend of mine told around the summer of 2008 that he had heard Dr. Jones being talked about on NPR. My friend, who is rather main-stream in many ways, was of the opinion that, without ever reading any of his peer-reviewed papers, Jones was a nut job. Apparently NPR did a number on Jones as well.

Spooks

- Anne Garrels

Anne Garrels is an NPR foreign correspondent. From Wikipedia we learn the following about her:

Anne Garrels (born July 2, 1951) is a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio in the United States. She was one of the few Western journalists who remained in Baghdad and reported live during the 2003 Iraq War. Shortly after her return from Iraq, she published Naked in Baghdad (ISBN 0-374-52903-5), a memoir of her time covering the events surrounding the invasion. She has since returned to Iraq several times for NPR. She was an embedded reporter with the U.S. Marines during the November 2004 attack on Fallujah, and, on November 10, 2004, was the reporter who first reported information, soon refuted, that the Marines had found a “store of sarin nerve gas” during the attack [1]. Garrels’ experience in Fallujah is partially described in Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman’s book From Bagdad, With Love, which chronicles a Marine unit’s adoption of a stray Iraqi puppy (ISBN 1-59228-980-0).[1] She also covered the January 2005 national elections for an interim government, as well as constitutional referendum and the December 2005 elections for the first full term Iraqi government. As sectarian violence swept much of central Iraq Garrels continued to report from Baghdad, Najaf and Basra.

Garrels graduated from Harvard University’s Radcliffe College in 1972. Before joining NPR in 1988, Garrels was the NBC News correspondent at the U.S. State Department. Prior to that, Garrels worked at ABC News in a variety of positions over the course of ten years. She served three years as Moscow bureau chief and correspondent until she was expelled in 1982. She was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in 1998. She is a member of the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Garrels is married to J. Vinton Lawrence,[2] one of two CIA paramilitary officers from their famed Special Activities Division stationed in Laos in the early 1960s, working with the Hmong tribesman and the CIA-owned airline Air America.[3] [4] [5] Garrels and Lawrence live in Connecticut. [2] Lawrence’s letters to Garrels during her time in Baghdad, Iraq, during the 2003 U.S. invasion of that country, are included in her book, Naked in Baghdad (ISBN 0-374-52903-5).

On October 26, 2007 NPR aired a story by Garrels that was mainly based on information extracted via torture.[6] Garrels herself described the victims as “blood-soaked” and “sobbing”, but used the information anyway, despite the fact that information obtained this way is notoriously unreliable. NPR received many comments about this and on November 1 aired a followup in which Garrels tried to justify her actions.[7] Her justifications apparently did nothing to quiet the anger of the listening audience because the NPR Ombudsman sent out an additional email to listeners. This email quoted many listeners’ complaints and said that listeners “want Garrels to come home”. However, the email ended by saying she would be going back to Iraq.

Garrels conducted an interview with Tahir Younis, an Iraqi driver and translator in 2006 regarding the war. The article is titled ‘Life, Death and Trust in Iraq‘ and is published on the NPR website. Following is an interesting exchange between the two:

GARRELS: When we were working together during the war, did you trust me?

Mr. TAHIR YOUNIS (Translator and Driver): Anne, it was difficult because, in general, yes. But I get some instruction to collect some information about you. You are an American intelligence

GARRELS: That’s what they told you?

Mr. YOUNIS: Yeah. From CIA. To monitoring you and to watching you.

I cannot find any other references to this transcript that provides any more detail. Younis’ statement, “You are an American intelligence” is key to understand the exchange. Was it edited? Did the sentence end there? The exchange is interesting but the context is unclear; is Younis stating that Garrels is CIA, or that the CIA requested he surveil her? If the latter is the case then i think it might be interesting to ask why the CIA would ask an Iraqi driver to monitor the wife of a former CIA officer.

It is my personal opinion is that Garrels is likely working for the CIA in some capacity based on the following:

As a journalist and foreign correspondent working for NPR i would think the CIA would be quite interested in using her to influence public opinion to support their agenda, especially among the middle class and baby-boomers, the core NPR audience. I think her discredited story regarding the sarin gas, general sympathy for the occupation, military embedded role and reliance on testimony from torture victims all point in this direction.

Although not conclusive, the statement by Tahir Younis could easily be interpreted as possible evidence of a CIA association.

9. Operation Mockingbird?Check NPR”s President-CEO and Chairman of the Board

Kevin Klose

President and CEO

Kevin Klose is President and Chief Executive Officer for NPR (National Public Radio), America’s premier non-profit news and cultural radio programming service, with more than 730 stations and a weekly audience of nearly 22 million listeners nationwide.

A former editor, and national and foreign correspondent with The Washington Post, Klose is an award-winning author and international broadcasting executive. Prior to joining NPR in December 1998, Klose served successively as Director of U.S. International Broadcasting, overseeing the U.S. Government’s global radio and television news services (1997-98); and President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), broadcasting to Central Europe and the former Soviet Union (1994-97). Klose first joined RFE/RL in 1992 as Director of Radio Liberty, broadcasting to the former Soviet Union in its national languages.

[…]

John A. Herrmann, Jr.

Managing Director, Global Investment Bank at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co

John A. Herrmann, Jr. is a managing director of the Global Investment Bank sector of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. He advises corporations and financial sponsors throughout the world on merger and acquisition strategies and execution.

Before coming to J.P. Morgan Chase, Herrmann was a co-founder and served for years as senior managing director in the merger and acquisition department of Lehman Brothers.

Herrmann is currently a member of the NPR board of directors and the president of the NPR Foundation. Also, he is a member of the Yale University Council and former chairman of its Committee on Development, a member of the board of trustees of the Jewish Board of Family & Children’s Services, and trustee of the Steep Rock Association.

Herrmann received his B.A. from Yale in 1957 and an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1961.

The link the poster gives is an index page containing the names of people at NPR. The name Herrmann is curiously absent from that page but a short bio is still available on the NPR website, though it has been edited. The page does not mention him as being a board member though the breadcrumb navigation at the top of his page reads ‘About NPR >People at NPR’. He is listed as a trustee in NPR’s 2008 Annual Reports and Donor Lists . He is also listed as a board member at Wikipedia:

Public Members of the Board

Carol A. Cartwright; President, Kent State University

John A. Herrmann, Jr.; Vice Chairman, Lincoln International

Howard H. Stevenson; Chair of the Board, NPR; Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University

Lyle Logan; Senior Vice President, Personal Financial Services

Eduardo A. Hauser; Chief Executive Officer, DailyMe, Inc. Daily Me

- Kevin Klose

Kevin Klose (b. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, September 1, 1940[1]) is a journalist, author, broadcast executive, and academic administrator, currently serving as the dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.[2] He was, until September 2008, the president of National Public Radio (NPR), the United States’ largest nonprofit radio outlet for news and cultural programming. He served in this position beginning in December 1998, and also served as the organization’s chief executive officer from 1998 to 1999.[1][2] He was also a member of NPR’s corporate Board of Directors, and a Trustee of the NPR Foundation.[3]

Klose grew up in Red Hook, New York. His parents, Woody and Virginia Taylor Klose, were radio producers and writers during the 1930s and 1940s.

Prior to his tenure at National Public Radio, Klose was for 25 years an editor and reporter at The Washington Post. From 1994 to 1997, he served as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

Some criticized the choice of Kevin Klose to be the head of NPR because he “used to be the director of all major worldwide US government propaganda dissemination broadcast media including VOA, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti.” [3]

Klose is a graduate of Harvard University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in 1962. He has authored five books. He serves on the Advisory Board of the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy.

In a move roughly akin to the ACLU hiring a CIA director for its president, National Public Radio named the czar of American broadcast agitprop as its CEO. Kevin Klose has been director of the US International Broadcasting Bureau, which runs or coordinates all major American broadcast propaganda, including the Voice of America and Radio Marti. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia operate under the oversight of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the same body that supervises IBB. Kevin Klose was president of Radio FreeEurope/Radio Liberty from 1992 to 1997. Prior to that, he worked for many years for the Washington Post.

The choice raises new questions about the independence from government influence of the public radio network, which is already tied by purse-strings to Washington and has shown considerable deference to the White House in its coverage of the Clinton scandals.

This is not the first time American media and propaganda have been seamlessly joined. In 1976, the president of the CIA-connected Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty was former CBS president Sig Mickelson. Ironically, one of the few journalists who raised questions about the relationship of the media and the CIA–to the detriment of his career at CBS–was Daniel Schorr, now at NPR. Carl Bernstein, in a contemporary article in “Rolling Stone, “estimated that 400 American journalists had been tied to the CIA at one point or another, including such well-known media figures as the Alsop brothers, C.L. Sulzberger of the”New York Times,” and Philip Graham of the “Washington Post.” Later the “New York Times” reported that the CIA had owned or subsidized more than 50 newspapers, news services, radio stations, and periodicals, mostly overseas.

And, says “NameBase Newsline,” at least 22 American news organizations employed CIA assets, and “nearly a dozen American publishing houses printed some of the more than 1,000 books that had been produced or subsidized by the CIA. When asked in a 1976 interview whether the CIA had ever told its media agents what to write, William Colby replied, ‘Oh, sure, all the time.'”

With the bad press, American intelligence began becoming more subtle. As one CIA asset, Gloria Steinem, said, “The CIA’s big mistake was not supplanting itself with private funds fast enough.” One of the results of an increasing sophistication was the creation in 1973 of a Board for International Broadcasting to obscure any CIA control of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

But all this is history and largely forgotten even in media circles. Thus, it is not surprising that there have been signs the Washington inner party is feeling its oats again. In 1996, the Council on Foreign Relations suggested that the CIA be allowed once more to use journalists and clergy as cover for its operations. As “NameBase Newsline” points out, “For 70 years, [the CFR has] rarely recommended anything that has not become policy.”

In such an environment, for NPR to hire the head of national broadcast agitpunkt seems more than a little risky to the public.

RFE/RL received funds from the Central Intelligence Agency until 1972. Since then, it has been funded by regular, open Congressional appropriations through the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and has received no funds from the CIA.[57] The CIA’s relationship with the radios began to break down in 1967, when Ramparts magazine published an expose claiming that the CIA was channeling funds to civilian organizations. Further investigation into the CIA’s funding activities revealed its connection to both RFE and RL, sparking significant media outrage. Investigations into the legal basis of the relationship jeopardized the existence of both radios, which could not survive without the CIA’s funding.[58]

Conclusions

I think much of the information contained here is highly credible (some from NPR’s own website) and presents serious allegations and conflicts of interest at various levels of NPR, from journalistic to management, thereby calling into question the operating principles and ethics of NPR.

There does not seem to be an overwhelming public presence in National “Public” Radio from any perspective, be it journalistic, funding, or management. In my opinion it simply is not possible to accept massive amounts of funds from government and private interests and remain neutral.

I think the evidence i have gathered here speaks volumes and, in fact, only confirms what i already knew to be true, which is that main stream media, in any form, cannot be trusted. However i certainly encourage others to do their own research.

Phil, I read with great interest your article on NPR and have a question. Currently, I have two federal lawsuits for copyright infringement against two different NPR stations that are operated by State Universities. (Southern Illinois and Murray State, in Kentucky). Both of these stations are claiming they are owned by the Universities and have spent a ton of money fighting me, claiming they have Sovereign immunity because a state owned university is an “instrument of the state government”, and are trying to extend this convention to their radio stations.

While it appears, in practice, after reading much on this, and your article, especially, that NPR is in these cases National Government Radio, I cannot find one document that shows either station is or is not a government agency. Nor can I find any lawsuits like mine. The infringement has to do with the websites of these NPR/college stations, which, according to the FCC website, the websites absolutely do not fall under the FCC’s underwriting restrictions, but that doesn’t tell me that the websites may not fall under the sovereign immunity of the Universities. I could really use some help, or they’re both going to get these cases dismissed. Could you point me in any direction that could help?